Mobility engineers and executives at Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT) company, in Fort Worth, Texas, are developing new concepts of mobility to make moving people and products more efficient and effective – and launching urban air mobility (UAM) innovations, including the Bell Nexus air taxi design, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week. They envision and are helping to enable a fleet of on-demand, quiet vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) aircraft capable of safely whisking passengers over traffic and across urban landscapes by the mid-2020s.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past Ultima Thule in the early hours of New Year's Day, ushering in the era of exploration from the enigmatic Kuiper Belt, a region of primordial objects that holds keys to understanding the origins of the solar system.

The electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) revolution is gaining momentum, as evidenced by the unveiling of the Bell Nexus hybrid-electric VTOL air taxi concept at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), affirms Mike Hirschberg, executive director at the Vertical Flight Society (VFS), a non-profit organization working to advance vertical flight, in Fairfax, Virginia.

On September 28, a day after the first Lockheed Martin F-35B combat strike, an F-35B stationed at USMC Air Station Beaufort crashed a short distance from the base. The aircraft was part of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing belonging to Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501.

PTN has now evolved into an open call to individuals with backgrounds in aerospace, education, and technology to submit goal training solutions ranging from new ideas to highly-mature solutions that could help the USAF facilitate pilot training.

Waste, trash, refuse – regardless of preferred nomenclature – the approach to managing it has stood for centuries: collect it and then send it somewhere else to be stored or incinerated. The same holds for waste produced by astronauts in space. But for those who may spend extended time on the Moon or Mars, this approach might not be the best idea.

SAE International in Warrendale, Pa., has published AS13006: Process Control Methods, a new standard with guidance material to support specific aerospace engine applications, with a focus on the practical application of control methods for many different situations, to improve process control, process capability, and product quality, benefiting both the organization applying it and its customers.

Airbus has entered into an agreement with New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to develop capability in the country’s emerging unmanned aircraft (UA) and space data technology sectors.

Officials at an as-yet-unnamed airline in the U.S. is assessing a new hydrophobic coating developed by GKN Aerospace materials science and engineering specialists in Garden Grove, Calif., for cockpit windows on its commercial passenger aircraft. GKN Aerospace debuted the new materials science technology, which Airbus engineers are also flight-trialing on the airframe manufacturer’s flight-test aircraft, during Farnborough International Airshow in Farnborough, England, in July 2018.

NASA officials and engineers are prepping to fly the agency’s F/A-18 research aircraft over Galveston, Texas, using a “quiet thump” technique designed to reduce loud sonic booms typically associated with supersonic flight. This week’s test flight sets off a series of quiet supersonic research flights off the coast of Texas to test ways to measure supersonic aircraft sound levels and the community’s response to the supersonic acoustic experience.

As the third strongest storm in the U.S. was striking the East Coast, Airbus Aerial technology was providing around-the-clock support analyzing the impact and aftermath of Hurricane Michael. Airbus Aerial uses a unique combination of satellites, manned aircraft and rotorcraft, and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) together with data analytics technology and an artificial intelligence (AI), or machine learning, platform to help organizations supporting recovery efforts better understand and react to the storm as it rolled across the southeastern U.S. into the Gulf of Mexico.

The search for ever-lower emission technology for future generations of aircraft engines is actively progressing on both sides of the Atlantic. Tucked away on a modest-size stand at this year’s Farnborough International Airshow was a highly varied collection of unconventional engine technology displays – a clear indication of radical innovation already being investigated as a part of Ultimate, the European Horizon 2020 research and innovation project.

US Army officials and engineers continue work to modernize the defense organization’s fleet of Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter with a more modern digital cockpit, conducting a Limited User Test with two prototype aircraft at Redstone Arsenal, Ala. They selected for a Limited User Evaluation (LUE) a Crew Mission Station (CMS) aligned with The Open Group Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) technical standard that combines Core Avionics & Industrial Inc.’s (CoreAVI’s) compositor and graphics suite, Avalex smart display, Intel hardware, Wind River operating system, and Presagis server.

This month, during an ongoing review of military training for rotary-wing aircraft, the GAO published a report highlighting gaps in the Department of Defense’s approach for collecting, reporting, and analyzing aviation mishap data to inform aviation risk-management decisions.

Pulling out all stops, Boeing Business Jets debuted the “Shaheen” BBJ 777X at the 2018 Middle East Business Aviation Association (MEBAA) show in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The model that can fly more than half way around the world without stopping, farther than any business jet ever built.

The Terma 3D-audio system will enhance pilot situational awareness by supplementing the A-10C cockpit control panel visual warning system with audible directional signals from within the pilot’s helmet. The natural or spatially separately audio signals will be similar to what a human would hear when not wearing a conventional headset.